GMAT Reading Comprehension

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Source: OG12th

Level: 3

In 1955 Maurice Duverger published The Political Role of Women, the first behavioralist, multinational comparison of women's electoral participation ever to use election data and survey data together. His study analyzed women's patterns of voting, political candidacy, and political activism in four European countries during the first half of the twentieth century. Duverger's research findings were that women voted somewhat less frequently than men (the difference narrowing the longer women had the vote) and were slightly more conservative.

Duverger's work set an early standard for the sensitive analysis of women's electoral activities.

Moreover, to Duverger's credit, he placed his findings in the context of many of the historical processes that had shaped these activities. However, since these contexts have changed over time, Duverger's approach has proved more durable than his actual findings. In addition, Duverger's discussion of his findings was hampered by his failure to consider certain specific factors important to women's electoral participation at the time he collected his data: the influence of political regimes, the effects of economic factors, and the ramifications of political and social relations between women and men. Given this failure, Duverger's study foreshadowed the enduring limitations of the behavioralist approach to the multinational study of women's political participation.

Question List: 1 2 3 4 5 6

The passage implies that, in comparing four European countries, Duverger found that the voting rates of women and men were most different in the country in which women

  • A were most politically active
  • B ran for office most often
  • C held the most conservative political views
  • D had the most egalitarian relations with men
  • E had possessed the right to vote for the shortest time

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